My introductory column has gone live this week at Viralogy Experts. Jun Loayza, a tenacious young entreprneuer in Los Angeles, California, interviewed me about my location independent lifestyle and living as an expat in Thailand in early May, and he’s since asked me to become part of a panel of Generation Y experts in different subject areas for their new Viralogy Experts blog. I’ll be introducing people to the concept if they’re not already familiar with it, talking about my experience so far running my business remotely for 8 months, and living and traveling throughout Southeast Asia. I’ll also try to get to the nuts and bolts of being a digital nomad and answer all of your questions, so point your browsers to Viralogy Experts, subscribe, and please leave your comments and queries there.
In this 10 minute video, I talk about:
- My experience working on the road since November 2008, as I’ve traveled to Hong Kong, throughout Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia.
- My motivations for wanting to free myself from location, be able to live out of 2 bags and run my business from anywhere in the world as I travel.
- The benefits of international travel: A lot of people simply want the ability to travel freely and continue to do their work from wherever they are. I find that slow travel is actually much cheaper than one might think. Why follow the deferred life plan and wait until retirement?
- Leveraging geo-arbitrage: For anyone who’s bootstrapping his own venture or building up their freelance portfolio, extended travel and living abroad can actually present some advantages if you choose the right location: I talk about the ability to earn in a strong currency while you live somewhere with a low cost-of-living.
- Freedom of location, time, choice: For many “LIPs”, a big motivating factor is the freedom to choose where you live, when you work, how you spend your time, and to be more picky about what projects you invest your time in.
- Personal growth: When you live abroad for an extended period of time, you change your surroundings, your environment, your inputs, and your outlook on life. Travel will spark your creativity, resourcefulness and self-reliance.
Check out the post on Viralogy to see the whole 10-minute video intro and learn a great deal more: What is this Location Independence Stuff? Or watch on my YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe for more fun videos of my travels, and future thoughts and insights on working and traveling anywhere.
Feature photo credit: Stuck in Customs
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2 July 2009 at 2:52 am
You rock and your story motivates and inspires me. Let me know if you want to be a guest blogger on the bold life in the future.
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2 July 2009 at 6:50 pm
Great explanation of the l.i. lifestyle. I think it might be interesting for people who are new to the concept (like me) to learn more about how living abroad expands your comfort zone. I believe that expanding your comfort zone is a great way of personal development.
One suggestion: next time please turn up the volume a little bit (or is my music that loud?
)
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3 July 2009 at 1:24 am
Great and inspirational video, thank you!
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7 July 2009 at 8:00 pm
I’m bookmarking this to watch later, sounds like my cup of tea.
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8 July 2009 at 3:31 pm
Thanks for the encouraging words everyone!
@Tess, would love to guest post sometime!
@Jesse, good question/idea! I’ll try to touch on comfort zones in an upcoming post. You might tune in for my call this Thursday with Cath Duncan where we’ll talk more about overcoming fear. But stay tuned to Viralogy Experts and ThrillingHeroics.com for future videos!
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